The Day of Sadness
by jaka ray
Summary: ok it's not really a crossover sorry. It's about 9-11, and for all us americans it's a day for memorium.. And i'm collecting stories of how you woke up that day to discover.. tragedy. Hmm... Seems Chicken Soup has already used that idea, but that's ok, r
1. Intro

Ok so this is my story and my friend's story of what happened on Sep. 11th. It was the beginning of a sad day for Americans but also a chance to strengthen ourselves and open our eyes to terrorism and its horrors. And now we're walking down the road to stopping it. I won't bore you with my political views, but if you want, when you review (oh please do!) add in your own little story of what you did or felt when you found out (for our foreign friends!) or woke up to it. Never ever forget pain. Just learn from it. -jaka ray. 


	2. Puppy Wuppy's story

Author's note: Hmm. I don't think I'll put in her name. But for humor's sake let's call her puppy wuppy, a name she hates and that I have just discovered. She was American right up until her mom up and moved the whole family to Taiwan. Humph. And for grammar's sake and that of the readers' I've corrected her spelling.  
  
PUPPY WUPPY: Hey 9-11 is drawing near. can u believe its been 2 years already? really hard to believe. I can still remember it like it happened this morning..... all I know is that my mom woke me up like this "PUPPY WUPPY quick get up come on" (I thought I was late for school so I jumped up and found out it was like only 7:00 am and I said what  
and she dragged [me] right up in front of the TV and I was like "cool I can watch TV so early in the morning" and then yeah u get the main idea  
  
hope you're ok 


	3. My story

I can't really remember waking up that morning. I always feel a bit drowsy when I'm half asleep, but sitting at breakfast I heard the phone ring. That really woke me up. I picked it up and heard my grandpa's voice on the other line. But first, let me tell you a little about the setting of this story.  
  
It was about the time when "Band of Brothers" was showing on HBO. By some mishap in the cable bill, my grandpa received free HBO around that time and my dad asked him to record the shows. "Band of Brothers" was a series about army men (I'm not a fan so I'm not to up to date on details.) and their lives directed by Tom Hanks and (I think) Steven Spielberg. Anyway, my grandpa's Chinese, and he doesn't use English unless he really has to, and for me it's the other way around. I can speak a tic of Chinese but only when I have to.  
  
So anyway, I heard my grandpa say something really super fast and the only phrases I caught were "television" (dien-shi) and "airplanes" (fay-ji). Now, work with me here: "Band of Brothers" was a series about the army. Well, I thought, the army has planes; "Band of Brothers" is on the television. So I assumed he was chattering on about the series; that he had finished recording it for my dad or something.  
  
"You mean 'Band of Brothers'?" I asked him.  
  
I couldn't catch his response, but since I said it in English I guess he misunderstood as well. So we both hung up and my mom asked, "Who was that?"  
  
"Grandpa (yeih-yeih)"  
  
"What'd he say?"  
  
"Err, something about. 'Band of Brothers' and . something."  
  
My mom was real frustrated that I hadn't gotten it clear and so she called my grandpa back again and asked him. And then she turned on the TV. How scary to watch buildings crumble into shreds and know that it was real. 


	4. myshawolf's story

I remember that horrible day very well. When the show the footage, I can still feel the fear crept up on me and hold my heart hostage all over again. You see, my cousin was in there. My frail looking, sensitive, yet tough cousin, Susan was standing right there when the planes hit. And no one in my family knew where she was.  
  
Let me start at the beginning. Two months earlier, my father fell victim to cancer. He fought for several years and was tired of fighting. He wanted to rest. The whole family gathered around him including our cousins. He gave each of us advice and made us promise to do something for him. He asked me to follow my dreams but to still stay on the ground. My cousin David was asked to quit smoking. You know the normal stuff. But Susan got a very different request. I remember his wording exactly, because it was so strange so specific.  
  
"Susie," he said, "I want you to spend time with your son. Stay home with him in September when the schools start. Especially the first two weeks."  
  
Susan was very surprised and asked my dad to explain. My father just closed his eyes and slipped into a coma without saying a word. The next day, he died.  
  
So the funeral had come and gone. It was beautiful since all the local fire departments planned it. My father was the local fire commissioner so they gave him a firemen's funeral. August flew past as I tried to help my mother and sister with the pain. I knew he was dying for awhile and grieved during that time because I knew my mother would need me to be strong. Soon it was September and I went back to school at Niagara.  
  
September was upon us and most of us forgot my father's warning. My cousin Susan kept going to work in the area around Twin Towers. I was studying at Niagara to become a teacher. I just need one more class in order to graduate and was meeting with the Dean at 9:00 am on September 11th.  
  
I woke up with a start to my phone ringing. The dean was calling to cancel my appointment. Something had come up. She didn't say what it was and I didn't ask. I had a class at 9:30 and was cutting it close. After hanging I got ready and went to class. As soon as I entered Dunleavy, one of friend grabbed my arm and was dragging to the Media Resources Room. His mouth was going a mile a minute and my sleepy mind couldn't comprehend. Something about a plane hitting a building. I nodded slowly while trying to figure it out. Then I saw it.  
  
On a hundred TVs, were the images of a plane hitting one of the towers. The other on was already smoking. I stood in shock. My friend turned to me when said, "This is a movie, right?"  
  
"No, Krissi, this is going on right now." He responded, "Don't you have cousins in New York."  
  
Oh my God, Susan! I turned and ran out of there. My backpack was still on the floor where I dropped but I didn't care. I had to find a phone. I needed to get to my room.  
  
I cut through the student union to get to my room quicker. Several of my friends shouted out to me, but I ignored them, I had to find a phone. As I reached my dorm, my friend Gretchen was standing there with a phone in hand. I stopped and she gave it to me.  
  
"Your mom just called. She sounded panicked." Gretchen told me.  
  
I didn't answer her, but snatched the phone and began to dial my mom's work number. As it rang, I began to fidget around. Please, God, let her be okay. When my mom picked up, I didn't even wait for her to finish her greeting.  
  
"Is Susan okay? Please say she's okay." I begged.  
  
"Krissi, they can't find her. No one knows where she is. I'll call you when I know more." My mom stated gently, "Aunt Michelle wants to call David in Boston and check on him. You are the closest to him."  
  
"Yes, mom." I remarked softly and hung the phone. I could feel the tears begin to form. I couldn't cry, not yet. I had to talk with David first, make sure was okay. The conversation was the hardest that I had to make. David was beside himself with worry and doubt. He kept on how he should have insisted that she come and visit him during the downtime. I listened with a patient ear and then he remembered something.  
  
"Kris, do you remember what Uncle Bob told Sue before he died?" David asked. I wracked my brain before remembering that cryptic message. David waited for my confirmation before continuing, "Do you think he knew?"  
  
Before I could answer him, Gretchen walked up to me with her arm around one of our other friends. Her expression was very grim.  
  
"The towers just fell. They don't think anyone could have survived. I'm sorry." Gretchen reported.  
  
That afternoon, I waited by the phone for some word from my mother. Gretchen's room became the make shift refugee camp. Everyone came in and out with food or word about what was going on. My school went into a lock down, but not before half the school was cleared out. Those that stayed either lived locally or lived too far away. Gradually, we began to get word about the missing in New York. My friend Ian, a commuter, stayed to be with me as did my best friend Dino who I knew growing up. They knew I had barely survived losing one family member and weren't sure how I would handle other. So we waited for the phone to ring. I could hear people calling in the hallway over the confirmed lost. I was envious of them at least they knew. In my mind, I feel their pain and wanted to help ease it. But I was barely together myself.  
  
"I want my father." I whispered, "I want him to be here. I want him to make me laugh. I want my daddy!"  
  
Dino gave me a hug and said, "Krissi, Your cousin needs him more right now."  
  
"I know, but I just want him back."  
  
Then the phone rang. Gretchen picked it up and handed it to me. I felt every eye in the room on me as I talked with my mother. I hung up the phone and smiled.  
  
"Susie is okay. She just made it out and is currently stuck in New Jersey."  
  
Everyone cheered in the room. I leaned back and closed my eyes. One thought passed through my head, "God, when you see fit to punish whoever did this, please make the worst thing you have ever done. Put the ten plagues to shame for all that have died."  
  
Then I show an image in my mind of a young woman dressed in black crying red tears as she walked among the debris of the World Trade Center. Strapped across her back was a scythe and knew who she was. I opened my eyes to see my friend Dino giving me an odd look. I flashed him a smile and said, "I just had an idea for a story."  
  
My cousin Sue came for a visit to Rochester to get away From MYC and the memories of that day. It seems she was just walking in the building when the first plane hit. The security ushered her to the stairwell and told her not to worry. But she did, even though she was there in 1993 when the place was bombed. Something told her to get out while she could. When the second plane hit she remember what my father said and ran out of the building. She was barely out of the Center area when they came down. She ran all the way to Battery Park and got on to one of the ferries to New Jersey. She swears that she could my dad's voice saying smart girl as she watched the events unfold from the ferry. Even to this day, she still jumps when she hears any planes. Her building collapsed during the collapse of the North Tower.  
  
Oh, the image I saw in my mind. Well, that was my first idea for Esmeralda the Guardian of Death. As people began to talk about the experience, I began to flesh out other Guardians as well. My first story is with them torturing Osama Bin Laden.  
  
That's my story. 


	5. Marylin's story

|I am not sure if you fictionalised your account of your cousin or | |not, but if it's not fiction, I won't tell on you to | |fanfiction.net. Since you are collecting stories, here is mine. | | | |I live in Scarborough, Ontario - an hour by bus and subway to my | |job in the big library in downtown Toronto. I remember that I | |left my apartment building at 8:30 ish, bustling because I was | |late for work. My neighbour was outside the building. He was on | |his way to his sister's funeral and other neighbours were | |expressing their sympathy. I remember thinking how sad it was | |that he was burying his sister on such a lovely sunny day. | | | |I arrived at work at approximately 9:35. | | | |One of my colleagues, who likes to be first with any news going | |around, greeted me with, "Did you hear that an airplane flew into | |the World Trade Centre?" | | | |I was, as I said, late, and I was scheduled to do the opening | |routine, so I had no time to chat. But you can't shake Ingy off | |when she has gossip. Besides, she likes to tease me - old | |sobersides Marilyn who is always the last to know. So, I waited | |impatiently, half-smiling, for the punch line. | | | |"No, I really mean it. It's on CNN," she said, excitement and | |horror mingled in her voice. She motioned me over to a computer | |screen. There was this jerking image of a plane hitting one of | |the towers. I don't know if it was then that the other plane went| |into the other tower, or if that happened and we did not realise | |it or if that happened later. I could not grasp that what I saw | |was real and not Ingy teasing me with a special effect from a | |movie. | | | |A call came through for one of the librarians. It was from her | |husband, Mike, who works for a brokerage house downtown at King | |and Bay Streets, Toronto's 'financial district'. They were | |scrambling for the latest word because their representatives were | |there in the Towers or nearby. Everyone there was either stunned | |or trying to contact New York or trying to keep calm, because the | |word was that what had happened was Not A Horrible Accident. | | | |Ten o'clock. The library's open to the public, but we're gabbling | |away. The Internet's gone into overload and we can't get updates.| |It must be an accident, was the consensus. Mike phones again, | |around 10:15 or 10:20. Not only was the crash deliberate, but a | |second plane hit the other tower and there is talk about an attack| |on the Pentagon or the White House, or was it the Capitol or all | |three. It was so confusing, but it hit home when Mike told his | |wife that every building in the 'financial district' was being | |evacuated. | | | |All I could think of was "They're downtown. We're downtown. The | |police are evacuating them. What about us?" The last panic I was| |involved in {if you don't count the big blizzard} was a 'sympathy | |race riot' here after Rodney King was beaten in Los Angeles. I | |was not looking forward to a horrible death if Toronto was also on| |the hit list. I was also not looking forward to the crush of | |people on the subway if downtown was entirely evacuated. | | | |The library remained open and we went about our business, but it | |was hardly business as usual. Facilities rigged televisions on | |the main and the second floors. Crowds gathered and stood in | |hushed silence watching the scenes repeat. There was talking, now| |I think of it, because I couldn't hear the commentator, but | |considering the number of people, it was almost silent. | | | |You mentioned Niagara in your story. I grew up on the Canadian | |side of the Falls, so when they locked down the parkways and the | |power plants, that really hit me at home. I thought 'Smart idea' | |but I was even more worried about what to do if the power fails - | |and envious that 'they get to go home but we don't'. Of course, | |being stuck in a black subway tunnel would not be a pleasing | |prospect. {The blackout last August proved the point of what a | |disaster living without power was, didn't it? I hope the powers | |on both sides of the border learned a few useful things from | |that.} | | | |We were all shaken for at least two weeks. Very little got done. | |My mother was afraid for me. We felt sick for the people of New | |York City. Saw all the pictures. People E-mailed other people, | |"Are you all right?" The Sherlock Holmes lists and other lists I | |subscribe to were full of e-mails to people in the area. We had a| |big 'Hound of the Baskervilles' conference slated for mid October;| |but would anyone from outside Toronto be able to attend? New York| |City is the home of the Baker Street Irregulars and we expected | |many members to come north to our conference. The planes were | |grounded and no one felt like flying. Besides that, the New York | |Public Library was lending us two pages of Doyle's manuscript and| |a production company in Manhattan was working on a montage of | |scenes from the various 'Hound' films. So much of the conference | |was in danger of falling through. | |[Both the NYPL and the production company came through | |marvellously. The Library made beautiful colour digital | |photocopies of the manuscript pages - no way could they entrust | |the precious originals to a public carrier after Sept 11 - bending| |and breaking their reproduction rules for us. The production | |company worked with the dust settling and all the other emergency | |problems they had on their doorstep. The Irregulars and other | |non-Canadian Sherlockians came by car and train. At least two | |Britons, a Dane and a few from the west coast crossed fingers and | |boarded airplanes. It was my first Sherlock Holmes conference and | |I enjoyed it. It hit me now that the conference helped pull us out| |of Sept 11 fear and depression.] | | | |As for the flag waving and the 'let's retaliate now' spirit, I | |found that more sickening than the terrorist attacks. Granted | |that they were heinous crimes and the perpetrators deserved | |punishment, I think we Westerners still refuse to ask "Why did | |they do it? Why do they hate us? Are we all that innocent?" Is | |it ideology? Is it a power struggle over oil? An attack on the | |'capitalists' who 'exploit' the Arab nations, or an attack by a | |sort of Arab Hitler who rouses his people to these acts to gain | |power for his corrupt regime? Is Bush, Blair, et al, clothing | |themselves in the mantles of Roosevelt and Churchill for their own| |political power? These anti-terrorist measures threaten our own | |liberties and a large number of our fellow citizens are not white | |or Christian. I'm of a pacifist church and of Dutch-German | |ancestry. My people found Canada to be a refuge from the Soviets.| |It was very hard for them to reconcile their consciences with | |their gratitude during World War II. It hurt even harder that our| |fellow Canadians were suspicious of us not only for our beliefs, | |but also for our ancestry. Many of my neighbours are Muslim or | |Hindu and they apparently feel the way my grandparents felt - they| |love this country, they love their old homeland, and they think we| |think they don't belong here. I'm no saint. I'm as angry, and | |I'll admit, as racist as any other white North American. I have | |to remind myself that the world is not mine alone at least twice a| |day. I just wish that when we remember Sept 11, we would stop | |saying 'kill the [race or country] bastards' and start saying | |'what should we do so that sensible people have no reason to | |support dictators and terrorists.'? | | | |So, there is my story and my soap box. | | | |Sincerely, | |marylinusca | 


	6. Kate B's story

Kate B's story  
  
September 11, 2001 was a Tuesday, a Tuesday with a funny schedule. There was an early morning assembly, so all classes were an hour later and ten minutes shorter. The assembly was a presentation made by a professional bodyguard and crisis counselor. I forget his name, but he told us stories about all the stars he'd protected, like Chris Farley and Harrison Ford. After the assembly ended, I went to my trigonometry class and from there to my study hall. I was doing my trig homework when Nitin, a guy from my writing class, asked me to edit his paper. I did, and he left me with my math. I soon finished the assignment and started doing a crossword puzzle, when Nitin came back. I thought he couldn't read the comments I'd written on his paper, but instead he said, "The World Trade Center was bombed." "Again?" I replied, mildly irritated at being interrupted, and yet amazed that 8 years after failing to cause much damage the fools were at it again. "Do you want to come watch?" Nitin asked. "No," I said. "I'll watch it later." I had no idea then how right I was. Following my study hall, I went to choir, but didn't stay there long. All of us singers were herded into the much larger band room and joined the band in huddling in the dark around a TV with fuzzy reception, but not before I put my foot in my mouth. "Happy Terrorism Day!" I greeted my fellow singers. I got one response in kind, and about 6 or 7 dirty looks. I couldn't help it. The mood was too somber and I had to break it up. Unfortunately, no one else felt the same way. After chorus, I had my writing class. But again, we were all herded to a TV to watch the news and rumors circulate endlessly. I felt no deep sadness, nothing but surprise at such magnitude of attack and frustration with everyone for freezing in place. Then I thought of my dad. My dad was appointed to a government watchdog board, to make sure that all safety measures were being considered in the construction of a storage site for nuclear waste. He traveled a lot for this board, bouncing back and forth between Las Vegas, the largest city nearest to the storage site, and Washington DC, where he would meet and argue with government officials. He was in Las Vegas today...wasn't he? I couldn't remember, but I still didn't worry. Dad never went to the Pentagon...did he? Finally, the bell rang, and I went to lunch. I sat in the courtyard and looked up at the clear blue sky. It looked so calm and lovely. I couldn't imagine that same sky filled with thick black smoke and choking dust. The closest I could come in my imagination was the pink-gray-green color of the sky just before a tornado or huge storm. But the weathermen can see those coming. There are warning sirens for those. There is no warning for planes falling from the sky. After lunch came chemistry. "Please," I said to my teacher, "please teach us something. My brain is melting from all the TV I've seen today." Bless him, he did go over balancing chemical equations, though he did turn on the TV for the last 10 minutes of class. I don't remember anything until swim practice, after school. I changed into my suit and was ready to hit the water. Some of my teammates were not, however. "Why do we have to practice?" one girl complained. "There are people dying out there." "People die every day," I snapped back. "Yeah, but not innocent ones," she retorted. I seethed, but said nothing. She didn't know anyone in New York. She just wanted to get the day off. I swam hard, trying to forget that the world had gone insane. When I finally got home, my mom confirmed that my dad was in Las Vegas, but that he wouldn't be home for a few days, until they reopened the airports. I tried to find distraction in the TV, but found that most channels had switched to disaster coverage, or had suspended programming entirely. I counted how many stations were devoted to the attacks and complained to my mom, who was not sympathetic. I couldn't understand why. We live in Iowa for God's sake! No one would ever attack here, there's nothing to hit but corn and soybean fields. I was a bitch that day, and I'm not proud of that. Let me just say that I was trying to preserve what I could of my regular life. That doesn't excuse my behavior, but it may explain it a little. I took literally the command that we continue with our lives, and I looked down on those who did not or could not. I'm sorry. 


End file.
